Suffrage: Fresh from using his race as a defense in the Fast and Furious scandal, the attorney general blocks South Carolina's voter photo ID law as discriminatory. Tell that to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The Palmetto State can't seem to catch a break from this administration. First, the right-to-work state gets harassed by the National Labor Relations Board over Boeing's expansion into a new plant.

Now the Justice Department has blocked a voter ID law passed in May and signed by Gov. Nikki Haley.

Both federal actions, along with a Justice Department investigation into Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, have the unstated goal of rallying to the president's re-election banner consisting of various components of the Democratic base — from unions to African-Americans to Hispanics, all of whom need to be protected from those racist, anti-immigrant and anti-union Republicans.

Once again playing the race card, the Justice Department, which under Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act gets to review any changes to the election laws of 16 states including South Carolina until the end of time, has judged, without any factual evidence, the Palmetto State's new law to be discriminatory.

In a letter Friday to Havird Jones, South Carolina assistant deputy attorney general, the Justice Department said the law, which requires a voter to present a South Carolina driver's license or other photo ID such as a passport, military ID or a voter registration card with a photo issued by South Carolina election officials, would "significantly" burden nonwhite voters.

According to the Justice Department, roughly 10% of blacks registered to vote don't have photo IDs compared with 8.4% of whites.

This represents a "discriminatory effect" in its view, a view that ignores the mitigating provisions in the South Carolina law. If you didn't have an ID, you could still vote by filling out an affidavit and later show evidence of your identity.

Subscribe to the IBD Editorials Podcast South Carolina's law is similar to and even less strict than laws passed in Indiana and Georgia. "There is no question about the legitimacy or importance of a state's interest in counting only eligible voters' votes," wrote liberal justice John Paul Stevens for the 6-2 majority in the Supreme Court's 2008 decision upholding Indiana's ID law, the toughest in the nation.

The empirical evidence shows that voter ID laws do not suppress minority voting. In Georgia, black voter turnout for the 2006 midterm elections was 42.9%. After Georgia passed its photo ID, black turnout in the 2010 midterm rose to 50.4%. Black voter turnout also rose in Indiana and Mississippi after enactment of their voter ID laws.

Attorney General Eric Holder's concern for voting integrity is suspect in light of his department's mishandling of the blatantly obvious case of voter intimidation in 2008 by members of the New Black Panther Party dressed in military garb and wielding billy clubs outside a Philadelphia precinct.

Holder, like the president he serves, is not above using race as political shield and weapon. "This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him," Holder said regarding questions about his knowledge of and role in the federal Fast and Furious gun-running operation to Mexico. "Both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we're both African-American."

Not, of course, due to their failed and misguided policies based on political considerations.

Photo IDs are required for people to board an airplane or Amtrak train, open a bank account, buy liquor, cash checks, enter a federal building and for a multitude of other daily activities.

Consider this bit of irony: When Holder went to Texas to denounce the voter ID laws of that and other states, each person entering the LBJ Library where he spoke had to present his or her photo ID in order to enter.

Eric Holder must be amazed that President Obama was elected and he could become Attorney General. That's a fair inference after the Attorney General last Friday blocked South Carolina's voter ID law on grounds that it would hurt minorities. What a political abuse of law.

In a letter to South Carolina's government, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez called the state law—which would require voters to present one of five forms of photo ID at the polls—a violation of Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Overall, he noted, 8.4% of the state's registered white voters lack photo ID, compared to 10% of nonwhite voters.

This is the yawning chasm the Justice Department is now using to justify the unprecedented federal intrusion into state election law, and the first denial of a "pre-clearance" Voting Rights request since 1994.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act was created to combat the systematic disenfranchisement of minorities, especially in Southern states with a history of discrimination. But the Justice position is a lead zeppelin, contradicting both the Supreme Court and the Department's own precedent. In 2005, Justice approved a Georgia law with the same provisions and protections of the one Mr. Holder nixed for South Carolina. In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board that an Indiana law requiring photo ID did not present an undue burden on voters.

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U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder

.A second case offers a further glimpse into the High Court's perspective on the modern use of Section 5. In 2009's Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder, the Court declined to decide the question of the constitutionality of Section 5, writing that while it imposes "substantial federalism costs," the "importance of the question does not justify our rushing to decide it." But the Justices didn't stop there.

They also cast real doubt on the long-term viability of the law, noting in an 8-1 decision by Chief Justice John Roberts that it "imposes current burdens and must be justified by current needs." That such strong criticism was signed by even the Court's liberals should concern Mr. Holder, who may eventually have to defend his South Carolina smackdown in court.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley tells us she "will absolutely sue" Justice over its denial of her state's law and that challenge will go directly to federal district court in Washington, D.C. From there it may be appealed directly to the Supreme Court, which would have to consider whether South Carolina can be blocked from implementing a law identical to the one the High Court approved for Indiana, simply because South Carolina is a "covered" jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act.

In such a scenario, Mr. Holder's tactics could well doom Section 5 itself. That's a big gamble for the sake of trying to stir up election-year minority voter turnout.

Civil-rights groups claim this Justice offensive is needed to counteract a voting environment in which little has changed since Jim Crow. But South Carolina's law, like Indiana's and Georgia's, explicitly addresses potential disenfranchisement by offering state-issued IDs free of charge. When civil-rights groups fretted about the ability of minority voters to get to the local Department of Motor Vehicles to pick up a free state-issued ID card, Governor Haley created an 800 number to offer free rides to anyone who couldn't afford the transportation. About 30 people called.

In October, the South Carolina Department of Elections reported that some 240,000 state voters lacked ID cards. The DMV now says more than 200,000 of those had allowed their IDs to expire, lived in other states or were dead.

The Voting Rights Act was once needed to counteract the gap between black and white voter registration. By 2009 the gap had narrowed to a few percentage points in some covered states while blacks out-registered whites in others. Yet Justice retains a federal veto on election-law changes no matter how innocuous or racially neutral. Section 5 has become a vehicle not to pursue equal access to the polls but to play the grossest kind of racial politics.

As African-American men at the most exalted reaches of government, Messrs. Obama and Holder are a testament to how much racial progress the country has made. It's a shame to see them pretending little has changed so they can scare up some votes.

We know that Eric Holder is a liar and a criminal facilitator based on what we have learned about his conduct in the Fast and Furious crimes.

We are now finding out Holder has been a Democrat “cleaner” and cover up artist for as far back as the Oklahoma City bombing and maybe Waco and Ruby Ridge as well. Holder is a despicable excuse for a human being and that is why Obama appointed him.

We should have recognized this lowlife’s traits when he not only refused to prosecute “his people” the armed Black Panthers who intimidated Whites attempting to vote, but hounded and harassed any of his deputies who attempted to bring them to justice.

This criminal posing as our Attorney General and his equally anti American boss in the White House have succeeded in turning the purpose of the Department of Justice (DoJ) 180 degrees away from its original mission.

What has been lost in history and smothered by the Democrat controlled media is that when the Republican controlled Congress established the DoJ in 1871 its specific purpose, as outlined by Republican President U.S. Grant, was to fight the Democrats in the Ku Klux Klan who were intimidating and murdering the recently freed African American former slaves living in the Southern States.

At that time we saw Grant, a White Republican President, appoint Amos Akerman a White Attorney General, and instruct him to use the power of the federal government against the Democrat Party’s KKK to enforce the 15th Amendment which gave freed slaves the right to vote.

“…Barack Obama, a Black Democrat President, who has appointed Eric Holder, a Black Attorney General allowing and encouraging him to refuse to prosecute club wielding Black Panther thugs… intimidating White people attempting to vote….

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. claims Jim Crow is returning. In a recent speech, Mr. Holder said that attempts by states to pass voter identification laws will disenfranchise minorities, rolling back the clock to the evil days of segregation. He said that a growing number of minorities fear that “the same disparities, divisions and problems” now afflict America as they did in 1965 prior to the Voting Rights Act. According to the Obama administration, our democracy is being threatened by racist Republicans. Hence, the Justice Department must prevent laws requiring a photo ID to vote from being enacted.

Mr. Holder argues that voter ID laws disproportionately discriminate against poor blacks and Hispanics - citizens who cannot afford to acquire a driver’s license, passport or other form of photo identification. The latest victim is South Carolina; its voter ID law has been blocked by the Justice Department. Liberal Democrats - taking their cue from the White House - are portraying the national movement for election reform as an authoritarian assault upon civil liberties. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has even petitioned the United Nations, asking it to declare states’ voter ID laws human rights abuses. For the radical left, America has become Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

This would be comical if the consequences were not so serious. South Carolina’s legislation provides for free ID cards to be given to anyone who needs it. Not one person - white, black or brown - is discriminated against or discouraged from casting a vote at the ballot box. Moreover, the Supreme Court already has ruled on the issue - upholding state voter ID laws. In the 2008 Crawford v. Marion County Election Board decision, the high court held that an Indiana law mandating photo identification at the voting booth was indeed constitutional. If it is good enough for the Supreme Court and the overwhelming majority of the states, then it should be for Mr. Holder as well.

It isn’t. And the reason is simple: The administration is trying to whip up minority frenzy, propagating the myth of widespread ballot suppression. The goal is to foster a sense of racial persecution of blacks, intending to maximize voter turnout in November. The results, however, will be to poison race relations further. Mr. Holder is cynically playing the race card in order to achieve President Obama’s overriding ambition: re-election.

Racism has nothing to do with states implementing voter ID laws. Rather, it is about protecting the integrity of our electoral system. Voter fraud is rampant; abuses regularly take place. In Chicago, local elections are often marred by ballot stuffing and multiple voting - including by false voters who use the names of deceased individuals. Indiana election officials have found that, during the 2008 Democratic primary, countless pro-Barack Obama and pro-Hillary Rodham Clinton signatures were falsified. In Minnesota, voter fraud enabled Democrat Al Franken to steal the election from incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. It is precisely to preserve the fundamental basis of our democracy - one person, one vote - that voter ID laws are necessary.

Mr. Holder evidently wants to scuttle ID laws because he knows which organization will be hurt most: ACORN. For years, community activist groups, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, have engaged in massive electoral fraud - registering illegal aliens, offering bribes to numerous politically disinterested people in the inner cities as inducements to vote and pushing underage and multiple voting. Election reform, therefore, is a stake aimed at the heart of Democratic corruption and ACORN’s power. Clean up the voter rolls and Mr. Obama’s re-election is in serious jeopardy.

It is perverse to have a society that requires a photo ID to go through airport security, drive a car, purchase expensive consumer goods using Mastercard or Visa (as happened to me recently when I bought a stack of DVDs and the cashier asked for my driver’s license to check against credit card theft) or get a simple library card, but not to cast a ballot - the most sacred act of citizenship in a deliberative democracy.

Mr. Holder is a shameless demagogue. He has become the Democratic Party’s new Al Sharpton: Everything is seen through the lens of race. He has refused to prosecute members of the New Black Panther Party, who in the 2008 election stood at a polling booth wielding clubs in a blatant attempt at voter intimidation. Career Justice Department lawyers admitted that Mr. Holder’s policy is not to go after black perpetrators whose victims are white. He insists that Republican criticism leveled at him over Operation Fast and Furious is because of his race - not the obvious fact that, under his watch, thousands of guns were illegally smuggled into Mexico, resulting in hundreds of deaths including a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

Mr. Holder says his department’s aim is to “expand the franchise.” This begs the question: Expand it for whom? Jim Crow is long dead; not one single eligible voter has been turned away because of an ID requirement. In other words, minorities are not being disenfranchised. What Mr. Holder really means is to expand the vote to groups that will help ensure a Democratic victory in 2012 - ACORN and its nefarious allies.

Stealing an election is not beyond this administration. After all, it’s the Chicago Way.

Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute.

Eric Holder’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an all-out war on voter-ID laws and other measures to safeguard to the electoral process. Although Holder’s actions are purportedly to prevent African-Americans from being disenfranchised, the reality is that they serve the crass political purpose of ensuring that Holder’s boss gets reelected next year.

In the past several years states have increasingly focused on measures to protect the vote. After years of the federal government loosening voting regulations, such as through the Motor Voter Act and HAVA (Help America Vote Act), the pendulum started swinging back at the state level.

The clearest example of this trend is through voter-ID laws. In 2008 the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s landmark law requiring citizens to show that they are the person they claim to be by showing government-issued ID before casting a ballot. But to ensure that those without driver’s licenses or passports are not disenfranchised, Indiana provides free ID’s to everyone who applies for one. The Court upheld this law, with the primary opinion written by no one less than liberal lion Justice John Paul Stevens.

Such laws combat voter fraud that we see on Election Day, especially in certain parts of the nation. In Washington State, King County suddenly “discovered” enough previously “unnoticed” votes for Democrat Christine Gregoire to edge out Republican Dino Rossi for Washington’s governorship in 2004. There are also examples from Wisconsin, Missouri, and other states.

Yet Holder has blocked South Carolina’s voter-ID law. DOJ argues that this law is different from Indiana’s because South Carolina is subject to additional federal oversight under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. (This is especially important because there are several federal cases challenging the constitutionality of Section 5.)

But the reality is that DOJ’s actions are not focused on protecting voting rights. They are instead intended to make sure that Barack Obama wins reelection.

It’s not cynical to say this. The twelve or so battleground states that will decide the 2012 presidential election suggest Obama’s reelection strategy. These states include Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Missouri. All these states have large African-American populations.

The African-American community has a staggeringly-high unemployment rate under President Obama. So Black Americans will not vote for this president because of any prosperity he’s brought to that community. Instead, he has to gin up their votes by painting a picture of racial conflict in which he—and the governmental agency dealsing with such things, DOJ—is their champion.

This is also seen in Holder’s incessant playing of the race card. First he says we’re a nation of cowards about race. Now that he’s on the ropes for DOJ’s scandalous Operation Fast and Furious gun-running scandal into Mexico, he has the audacity to say that he and President Obama are being attacked in part because they’re both African-Americans.

Voting is a fundamental right. It is the means by which “We the People” consent to be governed for a fixed period of time by certain individuals, by electing them as stewards of governmental power. They wield this power to secure our rights as set forth in the U.S. Constitution and (for state officials) the constitutions of the fifty states.

But there is another voting right. It is the right not to have your legal vote diluted by fraudulent votes. As we explain in our Yale Law & Policy Review article “The Other Voting Right,” every invalid vote cancels out one valid vote. Each such cancellation undermines our democratic republic and reduces the legitimacy of election results.

Voting is also unique in that it might be the only right that is also a duty. It’s not too much to ask for citizens to exert a minimal amount of effort to fulfill reasonable regulations to protect the integrity of the electoral process.

Every eligible citizen has a duty to vote. But as we explain in our book Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America, it is a duty to cast an informed vote. Although there are only so many hours in the day, we each need to make an effort to gather enough information to understand the major issues facing our nation, state, and community, and to carefully vote for candidates who offer the best solutions for our long-term safety and prosperity.

Because voting is a duty, and also because every voter has the right to ensure their valid vote is not diluted by fraudulent votes, citizens can be expected to fulfill certain requirements that would not be justified when exercising other rights, such as free speech or the free exercise of religion. Measures such as showing up at the correct place on the correct day to cast a ballot under the watchful eyes of trained precinct personnel are examples of fulfilling our duty, as is showing valid ID to prove that you are the person listed on that precinct’s voter rolls.

These measures are essential to our self-governing republic. As examples the world over show, losing the integrity of the electoral process is a mistake a free people often get to make only once.

The untold story of the Obama Administration’s widely reported, $335 million discrimination settlement with Countrywide Financial Corporation is that, under a secret Justice Department program, a chunk of the money won’t go to the “victims” but rather leftist groups not connected to the lawsuit.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) will determine which “qualified organizations” get leftover settlement cash and Democrat-tied groups like the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and the open-borders National Council of La Raza (NCLR) stand to get large sums based on the hastily arranged deal which got court approval in just a few days.

Judicial Watch has investigated this controversial arrangement and in 2010 sued the DOJ to obtain information about the policy directing big portions of cash settlements from its civil rights lawsuits to organizations not officially connected to the cases. In response to JW’s lawsuit, the DOJ was forced to acknowledge that it has no official guidelines regarding “qualified organizations” that get leftover settlement funds and that it doesn’t monitor how the money is used.

In the Countrywide case, details of the unscrupulous arrangement are buried deep (page 10 of the 17-page settlement) in the court document where Bank of America’s Countrywide Financial Corporation agrees to pay to resolve allegations that it discriminated against qualified black and Hispanic borrowers. The lender denies all of the charges, but wanted to end the case and caved into the government’s terms.

Here’s a synopsis straight out of the court settlement; all money not distributed to allegedly aggrieved persons within 24 months shall be distributed to qualified organizations that provide services including credit and housing counseling, financial literacy and other related programs targeted at African-Americans and Hispanics. Recipients may include “non-profit community organizations that provide education, counseling and other assistance to low-income and minority borrowers…”

This language essentially comes from ACORN’s mission statement. The famously corrupt group has raked in tens of millions of taxpayer dollars over the years but a series of scandals involving misuse of public funds, embezzlement, intimidation tactics, employee abuse, questionable hiring tactics and fraudulent voter registrations led Congress to pass legislation prohibiting the federal government from funding ACORN. The group simply transformed into various “spinoffs” and affiliated organizations and continues to get public money. Read all about it in a special JW investigative report, “The Rebranding of ACORN.”

The NCLR also stands to get money under the Countrywide settlement because the influential Mexican La Raza group is tight with the president and offers Latinos “housing counseling” that’s previously been funded by Uncle Sam. A JW probe uncovered documents in June that reveal federal funding for the group has skyrocketed since one of its top officials— Cecilia Muñoz—got a job in the Obama White House. Keeping with the mutual praise, the NCLR quickly issued a press release commending the administration for holding Countrywide “accountable for targeting communities of color.”

The landmark deal is the largest residential fair-lending settlement in history and has been widely celebrated by liberal groups as well as various media outlets, some of which believe the punishment wasn’t harsh enough. One newspaper editorial called it a “pittance compared to the grievous harm the lender brought to families across the nation.”

The money is supposed to be distributed to more than 200,000 minority victims—nearly one-third of them in California—who took out home loans between 2004 and 2008. According to the DOJ they were charged higher interest rates and fees than white borrowers based on their race not their credit. Thomas Perez, head of the DOJ’s bloated civil rights division, called it “discrimination with a smile” because victims had no idea they were being victimized and instead were thrilled just to get a home loan and realize the American dream.

For years, the Left has asked why the Obama administration hasn’t pursued prosecutions against lenders who arguably engaged in fraud when foreclosing on mortgages in the wake of the housing-bubble collapse. It turns out that these lenders had friends in high places in the Department of Justice. Reuters reports that both Attorney General Eric Holder and his lieutenant Lanny Breuer, who ran the DoJ’s criminal division, were partners in a law firm that worked on behalf of those very same firms (via JWF’s Just A Grunt):

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who’s Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows. The firm, Covington & Burling, is one of Washington’s biggest white shoe law firms. Law professors and other federal ethics experts said that federal conflict of interest rules required Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any Justice Department decisions relating to law firm clients they personally had done work for.

Both the Justice Department and Covington declined to say if either official had personally worked on matters for the big mortgage industry clients. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Holder and Breuer had complied fully with conflict of interest regulations, but she declined to say if they had recused themselves from any matters related to the former clients.

Holder and Breuer aren’t alone. Reuters lists a couple more former Covingtom & Burling associates at the DoJ that have since returned to their law practice, including Holder’s deputy chief of staff John Garland and Breuer’s deputy chief of staff Steven Fagell. The law firm itself lists almost two dozen former attorneys now working in the DoJ and another dozen in US Attorney offices around the country. That’s quite an impressive footprint of influence for Covington & Burling, and a valuable one for its clientele.

It’s not as if the fraud was particularly esoteric, either. Reuters began its own reporting on massive numbers of forged endorsements, part of the robo-signing scandal that halted foreclosure processing for more than a year. Those forgeries got submitted to courts on many occasions as part of the foreclosure process. Despite this, Holder has done nothing — at least publicly — to press an investigation into these forgeries, and as Reuters reports today, more are on their way:

Recent calls for a wide-ranging criminal investigation of the mortgage servicing industry have come from members of Congress, including Senator Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., state officials, and county clerks. In recent months clerks from around the country have examined mortgage and foreclosure records filed with them and reported finding high percentages of apparently fraudulent documents. On Wednesday, John O’Brien Jr., register of deeds in Salem, Mass., announced that he had sent 31,897 allegedly fraudulent foreclosure-related documents to Holder. O’Brien said he asked for a criminal investigation of servicers and their law firms that had filed the documents because they “show a pattern of fraud,” forgery and false notarizations.

I suspect this information will animate the Left against Holder much more than Operation Fast & Furious, but both need extensive investigation. Perhaps this will be the straw that broke the camel’s back and convinces Barack Obama to get a new Attorney General. If not, Republicans and Democrats alike will have plenty of opportunity to ask Obama why his Department of Justice seems more interested in cover-ups and political machinations than in law enforcement.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. claims Jim Crow is returning. In a recent speech, Mr. Holder said that attempts by states to pass voter identification laws will disenfranchise minorities, rolling back the clock to the evil days of segregation. He said that a growing number of minorities fear that “the same disparities, divisions and problems” now afflict America as they did in 1965 prior to the Voting Rights Act. According to the Obama administration, our democracy is being threatened by racist Republicans. Hence, the Justice Department must prevent laws requiring a photo ID to vote from being enacted.

Mr. Holder argues that voter ID laws disproportionately discriminate against poor blacks and Hispanics - citizens who cannot afford to acquire a driver’s license, passport or other form of photo identification. The latest victim is South Carolina; its voter ID law has been blocked by the Justice Department. Liberal Democrats - taking their cue from the White House - are portraying the national movement for election reform as an authoritarian assault upon civil liberties. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has even petitioned the United Nations, asking it to declare states’ voter ID laws human rights abuses. For the radical left, America has become Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

This would be comical if the consequences were not so serious. South Carolina’s legislation provides for free ID cards to be given to anyone who needs it. Not one person - white, black or brown - is discriminated against or discouraged from casting a vote at the ballot box. Moreover, the Supreme Court already has ruled on the issue - upholding state voter ID laws. In the 2008 Crawford v. Marion County Election Board decision, the high court held that an Indiana law mandating photo identification at the voting booth was indeed constitutional. If it is good enough for the Supreme Court and the overwhelming majority of the states, then it should be for Mr. Holder as well.

It isn’t. And the reason is simple: The administration is trying to whip up minority frenzy, propagating the myth of widespread ballot suppression. The goal is to foster a sense of racial persecution of blacks, intending to maximize voter turnout in November. The results, however, will be to poison race relations further. Mr. Holder is cynically playing the race card in order to achieve President Obama’s overriding ambition: re-election.

Racism has nothing to do with states implementing voter ID laws. Rather, it is about protecting the integrity of our electoral system. Voter fraud is rampant; abuses regularly take place. In Chicago, local elections are often marred by ballot stuffing and multiple voting - including by false voters who use the names of deceased individuals. Indiana election officials have found that, during the 2008 Democratic primary, countless pro-Barack Obama and pro-Hillary Rodham Clinton signatures were falsified. In Minnesota, voter fraud enabled Democrat Al Franken to steal the election from incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. It is precisely to preserve the fundamental basis of our democracy - one person, one vote - that voter ID laws are necessary.

Mr. Holder evidently wants to scuttle ID laws because he knows which organization will be hurt most: ACORN. For years, community activist groups, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, have engaged in massive electoral fraud - registering illegal aliens, offering bribes to numerous politically disinterested people in the inner cities as inducements to vote and pushing underage and multiple voting. Election reform, therefore, is a stake aimed at the heart of Democratic corruption and ACORN’s power. Clean up the voter rolls and Mr. Obama’s re-election is in serious jeopardy.

It is perverse to have a society that requires a photo ID to go through airport security, drive a car, purchase expensive consumer goods using Mastercard or Visa (as happened to me recently when I bought a stack of DVDs and the cashier asked for my driver’s license to check against credit card theft) or get a simple library card, but not to cast a ballot - the most sacred act of citizenship in a deliberative democracy.

Mr. Holder is a shameless demagogue. He has become the Democratic Party’s new Al Sharpton: Everything is seen through the lens of race. He has refused to prosecute members of the New Black Panther Party, who in the 2008 election stood at a polling booth wielding clubs in a blatant attempt at voter intimidation. Career Justice Department lawyers admitted that Mr. Holder’s policy is not to go after black perpetrators whose victims are white. He insists that Republican criticism leveled at him over Operation Fast and Furious is because of his race - not the obvious fact that, under his watch, thousands of guns were illegally smuggled into Mexico, resulting in hundreds of deaths including a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

Mr. Holder says his department’s aim is to “expand the franchise.” This begs the question: Expand it for whom? Jim Crow is long dead; not one single eligible voter has been turned away because of an ID requirement. In other words, minorities are not being disenfranchised. What Mr. Holder really means is to expand the vote to groups that will help ensure a Democratic victory in 2012 - ACORN and its nefarious allies.

Stealing an election is not beyond this administration. After all, it’s the Chicago Way.

Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute.

Nevadans are probably wondering why their own Attorney General, Catherine Cortez Masto is prosecuting corrupt lenders for the fraudulent act of robo-signing, but U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is not.

In fact, millions of Americans, particularly those who are being foreclosed upon are probably wondering the same thing since the Obama administration decided in October to forego criminal charges against Bank of America, JPMorgan, Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Ally Financial in exchange for a $25 billion civil settlement.

But new information reported by Reuters today implies that Holder and other top Justice Department officials may be restraining themselves because their former Washington, D.C. white-shoe employer, Covington & Burling, which represented many of the big banks getting a break.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who’s Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.

The firm, Covington & Burling, is one of Washington’s biggest white shoe law firms. Law professors and other federal ethics experts said that federal conflict of interest rules required Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any Justice Department decisions relating to law firm clients they personally had done work for.

Holder has resisted calls for a criminal investigation since October 2010, when evidence of widespread “robo-signing” first surfaced. That involved mortgage servicer employees falsely signing and swearing to massive numbers of affidavits and other foreclosure documents that they had never read or checked for accuracy.

In a letter obtained by The Daily Caller, House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Lamar Smith warned Attorney General Eric Holder not to permit the transfer of funds from a recent $335 million Department of Justice settlement to organizations associated with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, more commonly known as ACORN, or other advocacy groups allied with President Obama.

Smith is concerned that flimsy language in the settlement agreement with Countrywide Financial — the mortgage arm of Bank of America — could be politically motivated.

“I am concerned that the terms of the Justice Department’s recent settlement with Countrywide Financial Corporation and certain affiliates (collectively, ‘Countrywide’) will allow the Department to give large sums of money to individuals and organizations with questionable backgrounds or close political ties to the White House without any guidelines or oversight,” Smith wrote.

“If that is to be the case, this sort of backdoor funding of the president’s political allies would be an abuse of the Department’s law enforcement authority.”

Scandal: For incompetence alone, Attorney General Eric Holder should resign in the wake of the illegal "Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal. But fresh news that he knew of it and is covering it up warrants impeachment.

In the latest Friday night document dump — news released as to minimize its scandalous impact on the White House — congressional investigators learned that Attorney General Holder knew all along that a gun his Justice Department intentionally let fall into the hands of Mexico's cartels was used to murder U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry on Dec. 15, 2010.

Holder must have known right away because his Deputy Chief of Staff Monty Wilkinson received an email from then-Arizona U.S. Attorney General Dennis Burke telling him just that: "The guns found in the desert near the murder(ed) BP officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about — they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store."

According to the Daily Caller, the emails also showed that Wilkinson then "alerted" Holder about the killing of the U.S. agent.

Since then, Wilkinson has taken the Fifth in congressional testimony and told investigators, "I don't recall," while the Justice Department on Monday declined to give any answer to the press about what Holder knew and when he knew it.

This is classic coverup behavior — late-night document dumps, officials taking the Fifth, "I don't recall" excuses — the likes of which we haven't seen since the Nixon and Clinton years.

Along with the false testimony that Holder gave last year to congressional investigators including Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, this never-ending case can only get worse as the damning evidence piles up.

To the great annoyance of congressional investigators, Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department has been dragging its feet turning over subpoenaed documents relating to several inquiries – most infamously the “Fast and Furious” gun walking operation, in which American guns were deliberately allowed to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartel killers.

DOJ has a habit of releasing these subpoenaed documents in massive “dumps” on Friday night, to guarantee minimal media coverage. Last Friday’s dump weighed in at 500 pages, and turned out to contain some very interesting emails sent in the wake of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder. Among the first media outlets to dig out these messages was… National Public Radio:

The email messages show the former top federal prosecutor in Arizona, Dennis Burke, notifying an aide to Holder via email on Dec. 15, 2010 that agent Brian Terry had been wounded and died. "Tragic," responds the aide, Monty Wilkinson. "I've alerted the AG, the acting Deputy Attorney General..." Only a few minutes later, Wilkinson emailed again, saying, "Please provide any additional details as they become available to you."

Burke then delivered another piece of bad news: "The guns found in the desert near the murder [sic] ... officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about — they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store."

Uh-oh. This is very bad news for Attorney General Eric Holder’s perjury defense - which rests on the assertion that he has no idea what’s actually going on at the Justice Department, doesn’t read his email, and was totally out of the loop on Operation Fast and Furious until it became a media sensation. Specifically, Holder told Congress in May 2011 that he “probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” Later, he changed his mind and said it was more like “a couple of months.”

But here we have emails clearly demonstrating that Holder’s aide, Monty Wilkinson, was fully aware of the Fast and Furious connection to Agent Terry’s murder on December 14, 2010 almost immediately. NPR’s summary of the incriminating emails leaves out some very important details, which the Washington Times provides:

The released emails show a conversation between one official, whose name was redacted, and now-former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke. “On December 14, 2010, a BORTAC agent working in the Nogales, AZ AOR was shot. The agent was conducting Border Patrol operations 18 miles north of the international boundary when he encountered [redacted word] unidentified subjects. Shots were exchanged resulting in the agent being shot. At this time, the agent is being transported to an area where he can be air lifted to an emergency medical center,” the email read.

Another email sent an hour later, read: “Our agent has passed away.”

Burke then forwarded those two email to Eric Holder’s then-deputy chief of staff, Monty Wilkinson, adding that the shooting was “not good,” due to the fact that it had happened “18 miles w/in” the United States border.

Later that day, Burke sent an email to Wilkinson alerting him that the guns used to kill Brian Terry were weapons from the gunrunning operation, Fast and Furious.

“The guns found in the desert near the murdered BP officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about – they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store,” Burke wrote to Wilkinson in an email.

(Emphases mine.) Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) of the Senate Judiciary Committee, one of the leading investigators of the Fast and Furious scandal, said via Twitter that these documents “clearly show Holder’s people knew about gun running days before I opened my investigation, yet they lied.” (Note: I have taken the liberty of transcribing Grassley’s comment from highly compressed Twitter-speak.)

Now, in order to maintain his “Sergeant Schultz” defense against perjury, Holder would have to claim that his aide, Wilkinson, never actually briefed him after claiming to have done so, and never passed along any of the Fast and Furious-related details of Terry’s murder.

If Wilkinson is willing to go under the bus for his boss, he might try claiming he was somehow distracted from researching this immensely significant story, after plainly stating he would look into it, and keep Holder up to speed. Keep in mind that the emails make it absolutely and unambiguously clear that Wilkinson knew weapons found at the scene of Terry’s murder were connected to an investigation he and Burke “were going to talk about.” It strains credulity that Wilkinson simply lost interest in the Terry murder, which generated a huge amount of DOJ message traffic, and near-panic among the ATF brass running Operation Fast and Furious.

Or, alternatively, Holder would have to claim that Wilkinson dutifully prepared a detailed briefing within a day or two of Terry’s murder, but Holder never bothered to read it.

Burke, by the way, is a key Fast and Furious player who admitted, after resigning, that he leaked a Justice Department memo to the press, in an attempt to discredit whistle-blowing ATF agent John Dodson. To date, he’s pretty much the only person to lose his job because of the Obama Administration’s deadly gun-walking scandal. He just happens to have been the subject of a critical profile in the Arizona Republic this weekend, which pointed out that many observers think he was thrown under the bus to protect his superiors, perhaps including AG Holder:

Curiously, the supporters and detractors agree on one point: They say Burke became a scapegoat to protect higher officials in the Justice Department or White House. Dave Workman, a gun-rights blogger, described Burke as "the chief sacrificial lamb." Sen. Grassley, in an October statement, said: "Mr. Burke is to be commended, to some extent, for being the only person to resign and take responsibility for the failed operation. Of course, I do not believe he should feel obligated to be the only fall guy."

Phoenix attorney Andy Gordon, a close friend for nearly two decades, said Burke may be loyal to a fault, protecting higher-ups in the Justice Department. "DOJ threw him under the bus. That's my view," Gordon said.

Another friend, attorney Tim Nelson, said: "I don't know the workings of the Obama administration, whether they were looking for a fall guy or what. But it certainly looks that way."

It is difficult to see how Holder could remain in office after making these claims – the man would clearly be a dangerous incompetent whose continued presence posed a clear and present danger to the Justice Department’s operations and accountability. However, if he doesn’t continue his cluelessness defense, he’ll be facing perjury charges. All of this is sure to come up when Holder makes his next appearance before the House Oversight committee tomorrow. If former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke really wants to clear his name, this would be a good time to come forward, and tell Congress exactly what he discussed with Holder’s aide, in the hours after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder.

Philosophers and poets have argued for at least three millennia about who is more valuable. Poets claim they tell tales that inspire men to do things they would otherwise never accomplish. But philosophers argue that this requires the acceptance of obvious fantasies, thus leading men away from the truth. Judging by what Attorney General Eric Holder has been asking Congress and the American people to believe regarding what and when he knew about Operation Fast and Furious, we think he is telling tales that lead away from the truth.

Fast and Furious is the Justice Department program that allowed thousands of weapons to be sold in 2009 to known buyers for Mexican drug cartels in the hope that the tainted guns would show up at future crime scenes. The department's cockeyed theory was that the "walked" weapons would enable authorities to tie the drug bosses to specific crimes in the United States and Mexico. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats lost track of the weapons until it was too late.

Now Holder wants Americans to believe an obvious fantasy, namely that he didn't know about Fast and Furious until witch-hunting House Republicans made it a highly charged partisan issue a few months ago. But after reviewing new emails made public by the Justice Department last Friday, it seems clear that accepting Holder's claim at face value would be credulous in the extreme.

He is scheduled to appear Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The first question for Holder will concern a series of emails sent in the immediate aftermath of the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry on Dec. 15, 2010. The emails make clear that Monty Wilkinson, then Holder's deputy chief of staff, was informed by U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke of Terry's death, and that weapons found on the scene were bought in Phoenix and were among those in "the investigation we were going to talk about."

Other documents obtained by the committee make clear that the investigation in question was Fast and Furious. The emails also establish that Wilkinson and other senior Justice Department officials in Washington were briefed on the program shortly after Terry's murder. In other words, within days, if not hours, of Terry's death, it was known at the highest levels of the Justice Department that he was killed by guns sold with the full knowledge of federal officials who then lost track of them.

It is simply inconceivable that Wilkinson did not inform others in the Justice Department, including Holder, about these facts. Regardless of the political damage that such a scandal would cause, Wilkinson should have made informing Holder a top priority. Doing anything less was at the least gross negligence. This is even more the point with Holder: Either he actually knew about Fast and Furious months before he told Congress he did, or he didn't know when he should have. No wonder nearly 100 House members have signed a resolution of no confidence in Holder.

Scandal: For incompetence alone, Attorney General Eric Holder should resign in the wake of the illegal "Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal. But fresh news that he knew of it and is covering it up warrants impeachment.

In the latest Friday night document dump — news released as to minimize its scandalous impact on the White House — congressional investigators learned that Attorney General Holder knew all along that a gun his Justice Department intentionally let fall into the hands of Mexico's cartels was used to murder U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry on Dec. 15, 2010.

Holder must have known right away because his Deputy Chief of Staff Monty Wilkinson received an email from then-Arizona U.S. Attorney General Dennis Burke telling him just that: "The guns found in the desert near the murder(ed) BP officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about — they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store."

According to the Daily Caller, the emails also showed that Wilkinson then "alerted" Holder about the killing of the U.S. agent.

Since then, Wilkinson has taken the Fifth in congressional testimony and told investigators, "I don't recall," while the Justice Department on Monday declined to give any answer to the press about what Holder knew and when he knew it.

This is classic coverup behavior — late-night document dumps, officials taking the Fifth, "I don't recall" excuses — the likes of which we haven't seen since the Nixon and Clinton years.

Along with the false testimony that Holder gave last year to congressional investigators including Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, this never-ending case can only get worse as the damning evidence piles up.

Scandal: For incompetence alone, Attorney General Eric Holder should resign in the wake of the illegal "Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal. But fresh news that he knew of it and is covering it up warrants impeachment.

In the latest Friday night document dump — news released as to minimize its scandalous impact on the White House — congressional investigators learned that Attorney General Holder knew all along that a gun his Justice Department intentionally let fall into the hands of Mexico's cartels was used to murder U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry on Dec. 15, 2010.

Holder must have known right away because his Deputy Chief of Staff Monty Wilkinson received an email from then-Arizona U.S. Attorney General Dennis Burke telling him just that: "The guns found in the desert near the murder(ed) BP officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about — they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store."

According to the Daily Caller, the emails also showed that Wilkinson then "alerted" Holder about the killing of the U.S. agent.

Since then, Wilkinson has taken the Fifth in congressional testimony and told investigators, "I don't recall," while the Justice Department on Monday declined to give any answer to the press about what Holder knew and when he knew it.

This is classic coverup behavior — late-night document dumps, officials taking the Fifth, "I don't recall" excuses — the likes of which we haven't seen since the Nixon and Clinton years.

Along with the false testimony that Holder gave last year to congressional investigators including Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, this never-ending case can only get worse as the damning evidence piles up.

The head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is threatening to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress if he fails to comply with congressional subpoenas for documents.

Holder has until Feb. 9 to comply.

In a four-page letter to Holder, Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., claims the Department of Justice has "misrepresented facts and misled Congress," which began its investigation of Operation Fast and Furious one year ago.

Issa claims Holder's "actions lead us to conclude that the department is actively engaged in a cover-up" because it refuses to comply with previous subpoenas.

"If the department continues to obstruct the congressional inquiry by not providing documents and information, this committee will have no alternative but to move forward with proceedings to hold you in contempt of Congress," Issa warned in the letter.

Issa claims the the Justice Department has stonewalled the congressional investigation of the gun-running scandal that sent some 2,000 weapons to the Mexican cartels with the assistance of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

A U.S. Justice Department source has told The Daily Caller that at least two DOJ prosecutors accepted cash bribes from allegedly corrupt finance executives who were indicted under court seal within the past 13 months, but never arrested or prosecuted.

The sitting governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, his attorney general and an unspecified number of Virgin Islands legislators also accepted bribes, the source said, adding that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is aware prosecutors and elected officials were bribed and otherwise compromised, but has not held anyone accountable.

The bribed officials, an attorney with knowledge of the investigation told TheDC, remain on the taxpayers’ payroll at the Justice Department without any accountability. The DOJ source said Holder does not want to admit public officials accepted bribes while under his leadership.

That source said that until the summer of 2011, the two compromised prosecutors were part of a team of more than 25 federal prosecutors pursuing a financial crime ring, and at least five other prosecutors tasked to the case were also compromised by the criminal suspects they were investigating, without being bribed.

TheDC is withholding the name of the source, a knowledgeable government official who served on the Justice Department’s arrest team and was involved in the investigation, in order to prevent career retaliation from political figures in the Obama administration.

A former high-level elected official vouches for the government source’s veracity. “[The source] was trustworthy … and you could tell [the source] information or [the source] could hear information and [the source] would keep things close to [the source’s] chest,” that former official told TheDC. “You could trust [the source] with your life.”

Eric Holder has gone all-in supporting race-based hiring preferences and race-based benefits. Given that the majority of Americans despise this rot, surely the presidential candidates will pounce.

In a little noticed interview at the “World Leaders Forum,” Holder makes statements that should be the subject of a direct mail piece in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Virginia:

Holder expressed support for affirmative action, saying that he “can’t actually imagine a time in which the need for more diversity would ever cease.”

“Affirmative action has been an issue since segregation practices,” Holder said. “The question is not when does it end, but when does it begin. … When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled?”

Let me repeat: When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled? Again, the benefits to which they are entitled.

Ponder a moment the layers of rubbish in this philosophy.

Some are surprised by Holder’s brazenness. I am not. As I like to say, I wrote a bestseller about Holder’s racialist DOJ. Nothing surprises me anymore. The only surprise is the dumbfounded, stuck, GOP response — which would be none.

If the GOP nominee does not make this a presidential campaign issue because he is afraid to talk about such unpleasantries, then shame on him. In tough economic times, the last thing middle America wants to hear is the attorney general grousing about people of color getting benefits because of their color.

The Obama administration obviously exercises no restraint on racial issues, or perhaps has the courage of their convictions. What price is paid for this racial radicalism? None.

Instead, we have a whole assortment of Republicans, inside the government (oh and I could name so many names), afraid to pound Obama for this. Let’s hope they come out of their shells and fight.

Obama has paid no price for this rotted, unfair, and un-American employment philosophy, and continued GOP silence will preserve this peace.

Why has it taken the Obama Administration over three years to address the foreclosure scandal and have they actually addressed it? The scandal, which has been referred to in some quarters as “Foreclosure-gate” involves mortgage companies using a phony practice called “robo-signing” in order to fraudulently foreclose on homeowners. The company behind most of these robo-signings is Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, known as MERS. This national company has served as a clearinghouse and as a rapid computer generated paperwork processor for the big banks and secondary mortgage investors seeking to process and re-process mortgages.

MERS tracks an average of 65 million mortgages by computer and processes mortgage transactions without human intervention. The MERS process is presently being challenged in court in several states and jurisdictions.

MERS worked closely with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the other big national mortgage lenders in the years leading up to the mortgage meltdown and the Trillian dollar TARP bailout. MERS had aided in the process of bundling, credit default swaps, and derivative leveraging by making the process seamless and efficient.

Before becoming Attorney General, Eric Holder worked as a partner in the white show law firm Covington & Burling which represented MERS. In 2006, while Holder was a partner, Covington and Burling defended MERS in a growing number of lawsuits brought by local municipalities and title providers which claimed that MERS was bypassing conventional methods of processing mortgages. It should be noted that as Attorney General, Eric Holder has failed to investigate these practices by MERS, Fannie and Freddie, and by the banks who received TARP funds. There have been no investigations, indictments, or significant changes in the status quo regarding these banking practices since Holder and Obama have been in office. Indeed, billions in TARP funds continue to flow to Fannie and Freddie.

Once the robo-signing scandal came to light, after a 60 Minutes expose in October, 2010, Holder, under political pressure, assigned several investigators, like himself former employees of Covington and Burling, to the case. Holder also directed the FBI to partner with the Mortgage Banking Association, MBA, which represents the banks implicated in this practice, as part of their investigation. Working together, Holder’s FBI and the MBA, developed a definition of mortgage fraud which exempts the big banks. Thus the banks will not be investigated under the protective wing of the Obama Administration. Instead, the FBI will go after small-time operators and mortgage holders.

Meanwhile, the foreclosure settlement is so confusing and vague that it is unlikely any relief will be received by those who were defrauded by the robo-signatures any time soon. In fact, it is being projected that the practical effect of the settlement will be that banks will increase the number of foreclosures with the assurance that they will be protected by the immunity clause in the agreement. Another byproduct of the settlement has been that housing courts around the country have become choked with backlog of cases. All the while, Obama is trotting out the agreement as a cornerstone of his justification for re-election.

The failure of the Obama Administration Attorney General Holder to investigate the mortgage scandal should be the focus of a congressional investigation. Such an investigation might open the whole can or worms around the TARP bailout of Fannie, Freddie and the big banks and the Obama Administration’s tepid actions toward banking reform and investigation of fraud.

Attorney questions promotion of terrorist defender to head of Gitmo policy at JusticeFoxNews ^ Posted on March 4, 2012 5:50:56 PM EST by nuconvert

A former Justice Department attorney who blew the whistle on his department's policies is now questioning the promotion of a former defense attorney for an American terrorist to the No. 3 spot at the Justice Department -- specifically charged with crafting U.S. policy on Guantanamo detainees.

J. Christian Adams, once an elections lawyer who accused the Justice Department of racial bias in its decision to not prosecute a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party, said Tony West's promotion from assistant attorney general for the Civil Division to acting associate attorney general is one more step toward letting radicals run the Justice Department

"The most dangerous thing is that West is overseeing Gitmo policy. It's not that he's just some guy at the Justice Department licking envelopes," Adams told Fox News on Sunday.

Judicial Watch, a government watchdog group, noted that in Holder's announcement of West's promotion, he "conveniently omitted" West's role as the defense attorney for convicted Al Qaeda terrorist John Walker Lindh, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being captured in Afghanistan in 2001 while fighting with the Taliban.

(CNSNews.com) - Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday expressed sorrow and anger at the escalating number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, including at least 71 killed by "gun violence."

"We can, and we must, do even more" to protect law enforcers," Holder told the spring meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington.

"Just as I promised last year, protecting the safety of our law enforcement officers has been, and will continue to be, a key area of focus for the Justice Department," Holder said.

Holder noted that 177 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty last year, a 16 percent increase from 2010. "And 71 of these officers were killed by gun violence," he said.

"I am sorry – and, quite frankly, I am angry – to report that, since the beginning of 2012, we have mourned the loss of an additional 24 law enforcement officers."

(CNSNews.com) - Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday expressed sorrow and anger at the escalating number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, including at least 71 killed by "gun violence."

"We can, and we must, do even more" to protect law enforcers," Holder told the spring meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington.

"Just as I promised last year, protecting the safety of our law enforcement officers has been, and will continue to be, a key area of focus for the Justice Department," Holder said.

Holder noted that 177 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty last year, a 16 percent increase from 2010. "And 71 of these officers were killed by gun violence," he said.

"I am sorry – and, quite frankly, I am angry – to report that, since the beginning of 2012, we have mourned the loss of an additional 24 law enforcement officers."

(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...

LOL, here comes more gun control under the guise of protecting officers from gun violence.Which is ironic, because by definition, criminals are the only demographic that WOULDNT change their firearms habits with tighter gun laws.People confuse me when they assume that stricter gun laws are going to stop criminals from using firearms. Lol.Only people its going to affect are law abiding citizens, who probably arent the ones out shooting people in the 1st place.